


What Once Was Lost

by Eternal Scribe (Shadowcat)



Category: Primeval
Genre: Alternate Universe, Community: au_bigbang, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-01
Updated: 2010-06-01
Packaged: 2017-10-09 20:48:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 23,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/91455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadowcat/pseuds/Eternal%20Scribe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Taylor Craig was 11 years old, two very amazing men saved her life from a place that she didn't understand. Sixteen years later, she presented herself to the head of the ARC, James Lester, only be told that both men had died shortly after their rescue of her. After doing some investigations through anomalies on her own, Taylor comes to realize that the world changed in too many ways since then and all of what was wrong would need to be rectified -- but she was also positive that only her two heroes could help them with that. So with her own determination and drive -- and the wordless support of Lester -- Taylor sets on a course to change time and bring the men back to where they belong.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I want to say thank you to my awesome beta readers, havocthecat, and enochiansigils, and my very awesome artist, weaselett. Thank you so much, guys!

The woman's name was Taylor Craig and when she was 11 years old the two most amazing men in the world saved her life.

It was partially her own fault that she needed rescuing, really, and she could admit to that fact sixteen years later. She had been so angry with her stepfather that when her dog ran through the sparkling tunnel she had chased after him without looking where she was going.

The monsters beneath the sand would really turn out to be the least of her problems and when she thought they had eaten her dog, she had found that they couldn't get to her if she stayed on the rocks.

Too bad the soldiers that came through the tunnel later didn't know that -- or listen to her when she tried to yell a warning at them.

She kept to the rocks and a few times managed to run to rocks that were closer to the sparkling tunnel she had chased her dog through. That was actually how she had gotten too hurt to run any more. She had barely made it to the rocks on time the last time and had sprained her ankle jumping away from the monster that was trying to eat her.

She had sat there for a while, trying to figure out how and when she was going to get back home -- not that she thought that anyone would be missing her. Her mum had died and her stepfather didn't seem to care one way or another what she was doing or up to now. She wasn't even sure if he noticed when she wasn't there.

She had never been the type to feel sorry for herself, but she was pretty close to it when she saw the two new men come through that blasted tunnel. She immediately knew that they were different than the others because they didn't _look_ like soldiers.

Not only did they not look like soldiers, they weren't acting like the previous men had, either. In fact, when she started waving and shouting at them, they _listened_ to what she was saying, and tried to figure out what was going on. Once they got to the safety of the rocks, she learned their names.

Nick Cutter and Stephen Hart, and they were here to rescue her and take her home.

They became her heroes -- even if she wasn't about to tell them that. In fact, she told Stephen that if he ever picked her up again without her permission she would punch him. Since he was carrying her and trying to keep her safe from the giant scorpions, she didn't know if she would have gone through with her threat or not. However, it sounded good and it made them realize that she wasn't some damsel in distress that needed men to rescue her. (Really, if she hadn't gotten hurt she would have eventually figured out a way to get past the scorpions and to the tunnel back home.) The two men got her home and after a reunion with her stepfather -- who actually _did_ give a damn about her -- she stepped outside to ask the leaving men one question.

"When I'm out of school, can I come and work with you?"

Nick smiled and there was no hint of sarcasm in his eyes. "Yeah, all right. You'd be a pretty good asset."

Taylor kept that promise in the forefront of her mind as she went through high school and then college. She graduated early and threw herself into graduate programs. She didn't have a hard time finding out about the Anomaly Research Center and what kind of work they did. She had a few contacts in different places that she talked to from time to time, and she tried not to ask favors of too much. Favors could always come back to hurt you, but there were things that she _needed_ to know as she plotted out her schooling and her future career plans. Her stepfather and teachers were both stunned and impressed with the single-minded determination with which she approached each step in her long term career plan.

When she was offered the job on one of the research teams at the ARC during one of her graduate studies, she accepted immediately. However, even then she didn't seek out Nick Cutter to remind him of his promise to her. She wanted to learn more, to have enough of a background of knowledge about the anomalies and what they could cause or where they could lead before she presented herself to the main ARC team.

When she finally was confident that she had learned everything that was possible in her current position, she went to James Lester to get herself put on the main team.

None of her planning or anything she had learned over the years had prepared her for the news Lester gave her.

***

"What do you mean that they're dead," Taylor demanded as she looked at Lester across the desk.

"Exactly what I said," Lester said, giving the appearance of someone who thinks they're dealing with inferior mentality. "Stephen Hart died not long after they rescued you from that desert and Cutter some months after that."

"They've been dead for sixteen years?" Why hadn't anyone told her?

"Approximately that, yes."

Taylor was silent for a moment as she rubbed her temple thinking about all of this new information. "So all of the work I did, all of the knowledge I've gained, it's been for nothing."

"Now that would be where you are wrong," Lester said in a tone that said he was used to people being wrong around him. "There's no reason that you can't be added to the team, even if the ones that originally invited you are long gone. I've gone over your research and your personnel file and you would be an asset to the main team."

"You still want me to come and work for you?" She stared at him. "Even without Professor Cutter and Mr. Hart?"

"Contrary to popular belief, I am the one in charge and the one who makes the decisions with what happens here," Lester said patiently. "As I said, I think you would be a good addition to the team. What's more, I know that the team needs someone like you."

"Someone like me?" Taylor was instantly suspicious.

"Yes. That would be someone who has made evolutionary biology her primary field of study for the last ten years. Someone who has studied all aspects of the anomalies and their effect on the world around them." He narrowed his eyes and to her it looked like he was trying to communicate something to her without putting it into words. "Someone like that would be invaluable, especially with someone like Helen Cutter on the loose."

"Helen Cutter? Was she related to Professor Cutter?"

"You could say that. She was his ex wife." He let those words weigh on her. "She's also the one that is responsible for the death of Stephen Hart and she shot Professor Nick Cutter."

Taylor could feel herself going cold as anger started to build within her. "She killed them?" Professor Cutter's bitch ex wife had _murdered_ her heroes?

"She did." He was silent for a moment, but his eyes never left hers. "She killed them and all of the team mourns their loss."

Taylor clenched her hands into fists as she weighed that information. "Helen Cutter." She was never going to forget that name.

"Helen Cutter," James Lester repeated. "Even I find that the world is a much duller place without Cutter irritating me all of the time. It was tragic and a horrible mistake that she wasn't dealt with sooner and that those two intelligent men were lost."

"But they weren't --" The look in Lester's eyes made Taylor stop what she was about to say. She knew about anomalies and knew how they moved through time and how you could change the past.

Lester knew she knew that and he also knew that she would pick up what he wasn't putting into so many words.

"It upsets me to hear about their murders," she said instead, managing to keep her voice calm.

"Yes, well, such is the life that we lead," Lester said all business like again. "I take it that you will accept your new position on the team and take care of what needs to be fixed? After all, their actions have gotten rather sloppy as of late. Perhaps they are getting too old for their jobs now."

She highly doubted that, but she also knew that to vocalize the hidden messages in his words would not be a good idea.

"I'll take the job," she said firmly. "I'll make sure that things get back on track."

Lester nodded and handed her a set of keys and a thick black binder. "Welcome to the team, Miss Craig."

***

Over the next few weeks and months, Taylor studied the members of her new team. What she discovered made her almost as unhappy as Lester's news had.

Almost.

First, she realized that each person on the team was broken in some way. This didn't surprise her all that much, it just made her sad. After all, Cutter and Stephen had affected her on a deep level after only knowing them for a few hours. These people had worked with those men for months, maybe for years. How much more attached had they all become to their mentors? How much deeper had they been pierced by their deaths?

Second, Lester hadn't been exaggerating when he told her that they needed someone with her skills on the team. Within weeks, she was able to start making sense out of Cutters notes that Connor still hadn't been able to decipher. To Taylor, this was completely understandable and logical. Connor had once been Cutter's student and he had idolized the man, but he hadn't made Cutter's exact field his area of study and his specialty like she had. Besides, he had other logistics and technological skills that had been needed even more. Taylor's specialty _was_ evolutionary biology -- just like Cutter's had been. She understood more in his documentation -- located all over the damn place, by the way -- than anyone else on the team had ever been able to.

Third, the intricacies of all of the relationships among the team were more layered than any serial or movie she had ever seen on television or in theatres.

Danny was doing his damnedest to do what was best for the team, but was tormented over his inability to track down Helen Cutter after all of this time. Sixteen years was a long time to be so focused on the destruction of one person, but Danny Quinn was very determined.

Abby threw her all into every case the team dealt with, but there was a shade of sadness in her eyes that just never seemed to go away. It didn't take long for her to find out that Abby had been in love with Stephen Hart. When Stephen died, a piece of Abby died that day as well.

Connor, well, he _seemed_ to be in love with Abby. Maybe. The two of them were dating, but Taylor was convinced that it was because they had just fallen into that kind of pattern. They were the last two of the original team, so they were just together.

Sarah obviously carried a torch for Connor, but she didn't want to do anything about it because of his commitment to Abby. The last thing Sarah wanted to do was cause anyone more pain than they had already gone through.

Jenny, the nice woman who had explained things in a way her stepfather would accept all of those years ago, had left the team shortly after Cutter had been killed. She could understand that as even back then she could see that Jenny had feelings for Cutter.

Becker was a different sort of layer all together. He was torn up with his own guilt over not protecting Cutter better. He had been hired with one job in mind: keep Professor Nick Cutter and his team alive. He felt that he had felt in his main responsibility, and that failure had worked to shape him into a damned formidable soldier.

Because of all of this, or maybe in spite of all of this, Taylor found herself drawn to Becker even more than the others on the team. There was just something about him that pulled her to him and made her want to be at his side and wipe all of that anger and bitterness from his eyes.

Of course, when Lester told the team that she was _the_ specialist in her field and that she was to be protected at all costs, she saw shifting interest and reactions from everyone on her team. When he told them exactly what her field of study was, she could see all of them looking at her with new eyes. Seeing these different reactions to his announcement made her realize that this team, this family, needed her help. This damn timeline needed to be repaired so that everyone involved could heal.

In the mind of Taylor Craig, there was only one way that she could accomplish this.

Well, really, two ways that could be done in conjunction with each other.

To begin with, no matter the cost to herself, or the monetary cost to the ARC, Helen Cutter needed to be punished for the deaths of Nick Cutter and Stephen Hart. By any means necessary.

Oh, and she was going to bring Nick and Stephen back from the dead while she was at it.

***

It wasn't hard for her to decide that she would need to bring Nick back first.

During the day, she worked on the anomalies that opened and she studied them before Connor managed to lock them down or they closed on their own. She spent nights studying photos and descriptions of what had happened the day Nick had been murdered. It got to the point where she could close her eyes and recite every detail of the scene to herself. From what she saw in those photos, there were many places in the ARC that an anomaly could open without anyone noticing it.

_Driven_ was not a strong enough word to describe her. That's what she overheard Danny telling the team one day when they thought she was grabbing a nap in her office. She crept to the door on silent feet to listen to the conversation. She didn't know why exactly they sounded so concerned, but they did. Sarah and Abby talked in hushed voices and finally she heard Connor's voice.

"Well, why don't you just ask her, then?"

"Ask me what?"

She noted with interest that Becker was the only one who didn't look surprised to see her standing there. She'd have to file that away to think about later -- and wonder how much he knew about what she had been doing.

Connor looked like he wasn't sure what to say when she was looking at all of them so calmly from where she was leaning against the door. Finally it was Danny who broke the tense silence again.

"Why you're doing it."

"Doing what?"

"Studying everything that Cutter ever wrote down or researched," Sarah responded. "Why you lock yourself in his office --"

"It's my office, now," at least temporarily.

"--and study and reconstruct the things that he did or left unfinished."

Abby shook her head. "Even Cutter had his limits, but you don't seem to ever stop. What we don't take care of here during the day, you take home to finish at night and on weekends."

"It's not normal," Connor chimed in. "Everyone has something they love, but they also take breaks."

Becker was the only one who didn't say anything, but Taylor knew he was paying close attention to everything that was going on. She could also feel Lester watching them from the railing outside his office above them, but she didn't look at him. Instead, she looked at all of them in turn and then her eyes settled on Danny.

"Professor Nick Cutter saved my life when I was eleven years old," she said quietly. "I owe him."

"Oh, my god!" Taylor turned to look at Abby and the other woman smiled slightly. "You're the little girl, the one with the dog."

"Wait, from the place with the scorpions and that thing that we ended up chasing all over the place?" Connor looked from her to Abby and back again. Taylor knew why he did. It hadn't been long after that when Stephen was killed. "You're _that_ little girl?"

"All kids grow up," Taylor said frostily. She hadn't thought of herself as all that little at the time. "But yes, I was that girl. Professor Cutter and Mr. Hart saved my life." She saw Abby flinch slightly at her words, and again, she felt sad for the other woman. "This is the least I can do."

"So, you're trying to finish his work in an attempt to pay him back?" Danny questioned her.

"Yes," Taylor said quietly.

Among other things.

***

She shouldn't have been surprised some months later when one of the team showed up outside of her office door long after everyone else had gone home. What did surprise her was that it was _Becker_ and that he had two bags of food. She raised an eyebrow at him as he came in and kicked the door closed behind him.

"Presumptuous tonight, aren't you," she asked as she watched him setting food up on the coffee table in front of the couch in the office. The couch that she had planned on catching a quick nap on later.

"Doing my job," he replied, not looking at her as he finished setting things up.

She gave him a confused look. "Bringing food to me at --" She looked at her clock. " -- eleven o'clock at night is not part of your job description."

"Taking care of you and keeping you safe _is_," Becker said as he came around her desk and picked her up out of her chair.

"Hey! Put me down! Damn it, Becker, don't make me hit you."

"I have a hard face," he said as he dropped her onto the couch. "You'd probably hurt your hand more than my face."

"What the hell has gotten into you?" Taylor was glaring at him as she straightened to a more comfortable position on the couch.

"You need to eat."

She stared at him for a moment. "I do eat!"

He crossed his arms. "When?"

"What?"

"When was the last time you ate something besides vending machine garbage?"

"I ate earlier."

"Earlier, _when_?"

She frowned at him, really wanting to hit him. "I ate a few hours ago."

"And what did you eat?"

"I had a salad, maybe a sandwich, damn it. I don't remember exactly. What the hell business is it of yours what I eat or when?"

"The last real food you ate was at nine this morning, when you had the breakfast sandwich and coffee that Connor brought you," Becker said, his eyes darkening at her. "Since then, you have maybe managed to eat four bags of peanuts and a bag of chips, and drank several pots of coffee."

"I repeat, what business is it of yours?" Her voice has risen without her realizing it. "I don't need a babysitter, Becker!"

"Obviously you do," Becker's voice was matching hers in level. "My job is to protect you and keep you safe -- even if it means keeping you safe from yourself because you're not taking the proper care of yourself!"

"Get. Out." Her voice tone was full of ice as she glared at him.

"No," his voice softened and he settled determined eyes on her. "How are you going to help them all if you work yourself into a collapse and your body breaks down on the other side of the anomaly at a crucial point?"

That caused Taylor to falter in her anger. "W-what?" She tried to regain her composure. "I don't know what you're talking about."

He shook his head, pulling her to sit down on the couch. He handed her a fork and one of the containers of food. "It took me awhile to figure out what it was you were doing, and once I did, I realized that I should have come to that conclusion a lot sooner." He waited until she had taken a few bites of her food. "At first, I couldn't figure out why you were so focused on deciphering Professor Cutter's notes and why you kept studying that damned artifact that he gave to Cutter."

"I told you, I want to finish his work," she said, taking another bite. "I owe him for so much. I owe him my life."

"See, most people would probably have believed that story and just let it go. However, finishing his work and restructuring his charts and models wouldn't require you to continuously study the photos of his murder scene and Stephen Hart's death scene. Stephen should have nothing to do with finishing Cutter's work -- and certainly photos surrounding the scenes of where they died would have no bearing on that." His eyes dared her to deny what he was saying. "Investigating Stephen's death has nothing to do with Cutter's work."

This was Taylor, so of course she dared to challenge him on this. "Understanding everything that made up Nick Cutter's life -- including Stephen -- helps me to continue his work, and to maybe write a biography about him." She was surprised that she hadn't thought of that cover story before she was confronted by Becker and his suspicions.

"That might work with Connor, and maybe even Danny, but it won't work on me." He took a bite from his own dinner. "Sarah and Abby will figure it out, too." He shrugged.

"What exactly do you think I'm trying to do then, mister all knowing Captain Tudor Becker?" At Becker's surprised look, she smiled at him. "I have my own ways of finding out information. I can see why you never go by your first name."

"My mother was a history teacher with a passion for the classics and the monarchs. She thought Tudor would be an extremely lucky name for me."

"And has it been?" Taylor was very good at changing the subject and steering the conversations into different areas than they had previously been in.

He shrugged. "It definitely made me tough when some stupid git thought he was going to tease me about my name."

"I bet it did," she said, taking a drink from the bottle of juice he handed her. "Did you get teased a lot?"

"In primary school, a pretty fair bit. By secondary school, nobody wanted to challenge me and get hurt. They learned really quickly that teasing me about my name was a very short way to a busted lip and a really nice black eye."

"Ah, a force to be reckoned with as a child then," she said with a nod. "I can see how the kids would decide that teasing you wasn't worth the pain they'd get into. To hear my stepdad talk, I was pretty good at picking fights when I was a kid."

"Was he right? Did you pick a lot of fights?"

"Mate, I was a girl who loved science and animals more than I liked make-up and social gatherings. When most girls in school were shopping for dresses and trying to go out with the boy of their dreams on Friday or Saturday nights, I was studying the evolutionary charts of dinosaurs and humans." She shook her head. "I didn't have to pick fights. The fights picked me."

"I can see that," Becker said, looking at her. "Were you this bad at redirecting conversations when you were a kid, too, or is this something that you've gotten worse at as you have gotten older?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about," she said, taking another bite of her dinner. "I'm just trying to talk to you about something other than work."

"No, you're trying to distract me from the real work you're doing by asking me about my name and how it was for me in school," he argued. "That is not going to make me forget what you're doing and wanting to know why you're doing it." He looked at her. "I'm not leaving until we talk about what you're trying to do and why you're doing it."

She sighed, putting down her food. "Why don't you tell me exactly what you think I'm trying to do, Becker?"

"You're planning on going back through the anomalies and preventing Cutter and Stephen from dying."

Taylor's jaw dropped. She realized that there was now no way for her to deny it, because she had given away the truth by her reaction. "How did you --?"

Becker took a drink from his bottle and shook his head. "It wasn't obvious at first, I'll give you that. You hid your actual plans pretty well, actually. You studied the charts and notes and said all of the right things whenever we had to investigate a sighting. Then, I started noticing things."

She really didn't like how this conversation was going. "Like what?" She took a drink, hoping that he couldn't see that her hands were shaking slightly. She had been so damn careful about everything. How had he figured it out? Not to mention, how was she going to explain this to Lester _and_ convince him to let her continue with her work and the plan? This had all hinged on keeping it a secret from the rest of the team.

"There started being too many times where you stayed behind longer and longer. Everyone else believed you when you said you were trying to gather more information on the other side so we could compare and contrast soil samples and animals of the different anomalies that opened."

"I _was_ doing that," she argued. She really was. It just wasn't the only thing she had been doing.

"Oh, I have no doubts about that," Becker said, giving her a warm smile. "However, I know for a fact that you were doing more than that. You're the one that started studying the makeup of the anomalies more than we had ever done before. You were taking notes and were the only one that noticed that not all of them were the same size or depth when they opened."

She shrugged. "I'm a scientist and I like a mystery. The formations of the anomaly gateways are a very good mystery for a scientist to focus on."

"That's possible. But you were also timing the anomalies we went through to see how long they stayed open."

"Connor does that."

"No, Connor works on how to lock them down as soon as possible. You've been measuring and timing them. You've also been working on that artifact."

"The team has worked on that for years. Were you suspicious of them, too?"

"For them, it's been a job. For you, it's a mission." He shook his head. "After I noticed all of that, I started paying more attention to what you were doing and the schedule you were keeping."

"You were spying on me?"

"No," he frowned at her. "I was keeping an eye on you. Helen Cutter killed Professor Cutter because he was getting too close to the truth and he wouldn't help her destroy the ARC or parts of the past. If she thinks you're getting too close to her --"

"You think she'll come after me."

"Taylor, she killed her husband. What makes you think that you would be any safer if she thought you were a threat to her and whatever insane thing she's trying to do?"

She poked at her food for a few moments without speaking as she thought about what he was saying to her. Finally she lifted her head and met his eyes. "You guys haven't seen her for sixteen years, not since she murdered Professor Cutter. Lester told me that."

"Just because we haven't seen her doesn't mean that she's not around or spying on us. That woman isn't the kind of person to not keep an eye on her enemies." He put the rest of his food down on the table. "Make no doubt about it, to Helen, we _are_ the enemy. You, your work, and your plans make you a very definite enemy of her. If she thinks you're too much of a threat, she will come after you."

"She can't get into the ARC," Taylor reasoned. "Even if she does find out what I'm working on. She can't get to me here."

"She got in before," Becker reminded her. "She managed to get in and murder Cutter, and then disappear again. Even if she couldn't get in here, you can't stay here around the clock. She could get to you at your home, on the road, any place else you might be. You are alone outside of here and that makes you an easy target if she comes after you or sends someone after you."

Taylor sighed, pushing a strand of hair behind her ear. "I can't live my life in fear that the insane bitch that caused so much pain and screwed things up so badly is going to come after me. More importantly to me, I cannot, will not stop my work, Becker. I can't do that, no matter what you think the risk might be."

"Tell me why, then. Explain to me why doing this is more important than your own life or safety? Because, really, I don't understand and I think I need to."

"They saved my life when I was a little girl. They didn't have to, but they risked their own lives to come in there and get me to safety when they found out I was trapped there."

"They wouldn't want you to endanger yourself like this, Taylor. I didn't know Stephen, Lester didn't hire me to protect the team until after his death, but if he was anything like Abby said, he would never want you to risk your life like you're doing. Neither one of them would agree with you endangering your own existence or the stability of this time line to rescue them from their fates."

She folded her hands together, trying to gather her thoughts enough to explain to Becker why this was so important. She needed him to understand that she wasn't just doing this for anything that felt she owed those two men so much. She needed him to understand that the death of those two men had caused too many bad things in this time line that never would have happened if they had been alive.

"It's not just because they saved my life that I need to give them back their lives," she finally said. "From what I have studied and put together from Cutter's note and models, things changed when they died."

"Yes, that tends to happen when people die."

She shook her head. "No, not like this. Things that Cutter talked about and saw in his reenactments, and made notes from the anomalies he had studying, they stopped existing when he was gone. It was the same thing with Stephen's death. It was supposed to be Helen that died then, not Stephen. Because both men died before they were supposed to, it altered this time line. Things changed and not the way they were supposed to."

"Explain."

"Jenny wasn't supposed to leave the ARC, but after Cutter died, she just couldn't deal with the things that went on here any longer."

"She almost died, Taylor. She almost froze to death because she got trapped with some kind of killer mushroom."

"I know what happened, Becker, I've read all of the reports. However, had Cutter been here when that case came around, none of that ever would have happened."

"How do you know that?"

"I just do."

"How can you be so sure?"

"Can't you just go on a little faith here that I know what I'm talking about?"

"I need more than that, Taylor."

She frowned. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

"Sweetheart, since I came to work for ARC, I've pretty much been making my living off of weird or the unbelievable."

She let out a breath. "I see things."

"You see things?" His tone held no opinion that she could hear as of yet.

She nodded. "I see things. I've seen images of what this world was supposed to be like."

"You have visions. Like a psychic."

"I'm not a psychic. It's not the future I'm getting visions off. I get visions of the past... and shadows of what the present is supposed to be like. I can see scenes that should be overlapping what is happening now."

"You see these images all of the time?"

"While I've had them since I was twelve, I don't see them all of the time." She shook her head. "Hell, I would be in an asylum if it were like that all of the time. Especially because when I see the two time lines overlapping each other, I get dizzy or disoriented."

"I can imagine that you would." Becker nodded. "That puts a completely different light on all of the plans of yours."

"Oh?"

"It's now even more important that you have to be careful and protected in case Helen comes after you. She could come upon you while you're recovering from one of those visions of yours and you wouldn't have a chance in hell of protecting yourself from that bitch."

"Becker, I'm not going to stop my work, not now. Things are wrong here and the only way to fix them is to bring Professor Cutter and Stephen Hart back. We have to go back in time and rescue them before they get killed and bring them here. It will make the time lines stable out and quit fading in and out of each other." She looked at him. "We have to bring them back and not change anything from their death scenes and I have ideas how to do it."

"But you're not safe!" Becker got up and started pacing her office. "She could get to you during either one of those trips into the past. She'll come after you and then who would be around to pull off this brilliant plan for you?"

"If I have to be the sacrifice to fix all of this, then so be it. As long as I get those two men back, it won't matter what happens to me after that. Let Helen come after me and try to stop me from bringing them back. I don't care what she does to me or what she tries. Those men will come back home where they belong."

Becker made an angry sound in his throat that Taylor thought sounded like a growl. She also thought it was kind of sexy, but she wasn't about to tell him that.

"Damn you, girl, if she kills you, this team will never recover from it. You've become a part of them. You're the genius little sister that they protect at all costs because you really are family now. That's been happening while you've so wrapped up in your notes and models and plans. They care about you and you've been wrapped so far into this team and family that you're one of the hearts of it. Your work and your presence has given them more hope than they've ever had since Cutter's death, and you bring them all together." He sighed, coming to sit down with her again. "Taylor, if this team loses someone else they care about, they will break. They'll never heal from it and this team will all end up going their separate ways. When they do that, everything that they've worked for will be abandoned."

"Then I'll make sure that doesn't happen. If Helen comes to hurt me, then I'll make damn sure that it's after we bring the other men back. What happens to me after that won't matter as much and they won't break because of me, Becker. They'll have their hearts and souls of their family back."

"Do you really think that they'll forget about you so easy? You've brought them back together and then you're going to be bringing Cutter and Stephen back from the dead. You'll have all kinds of attention from them and they'll be so grateful to you for bringing their people back." He came closer to her. "They'll care if anything happens to you."

"I'm not doing this for fame or attention to me, Becker. I'm doing it because it's the right thing to do. The others can't know because, like you said, it could be dangerous. I don't want any of them hurt."

"You're vulnerable to attack outside of the ARC."

"Those are the risks I have to take for this. You know that as well as I do."

He was quiet for a long time and Taylor grew more and more concerned as he continued to be quiet. Finally he nodded and looked at her. "Fine. If this is the way you want to do this, then we will. But, you will have one of my guys on you as guard duty at all times."

For the second time that night, he had made Taylor's jaw drop. "You can't do that. Becker, be reasonable! If I were to suddenly start going around everywhere with a guard it will arouse suspicions and it will definitely cause Helen Cutter to take a noted interest in me."

"I'll be the guard, then."

"Again, you can't be around all of the time or staying at my place because my having a guard all of a sudden will garner more attention than we need."

"Not if everyone thinks I'm your boyfriend."

Taylor blinked. "What?"

"If we were to start dating, it wouldn't look at all suspicious when I am with you all of the time outside of the ARC, it's the perfect cover story. I can be at your place and you could be at mine and no one would be the wiser. You'd be doing your work, and I'd be doing my job keeping you safe."

Taylor shook her head and then stared at him for a long moment as she processed everything he was telling her right now. It really did make sense from a logical perspective and from a tactical perspective as well, even if the suggestion pricked a little at her pride for a moment. Driven, determined scientist or not, no woman wanted someone to pretend that he was in love with her. No woman wanted someone dating her as part of a job. However, she couldn't argue with certain facts about the suggested plan.

"You have a good point," she finally admitted quietly. "And if will make it easier for you to let me do my job, then we'll do it your way."

"It wasn't as if it were really a choice, you know."

"Don't make me shoot you."

"Do you even know how to shoot?"

"No." Taylor grumbled.

"I didn't think so."

"But I can kick and bite pretty well." After all, she had once threatened to bite Stephen if he tried to pick her up again. It's even possible he had believed she would.

"I'll make sure to keep that in mind."

Her response was something pithy and Becker laughed.

***

The rest of the team didn't seem to be surprised when word got out about her and Becker dating. She had been worried that it would cause a ripple in the work place, but in fact, Abby and Sarah were excited about it and felt genuinely happy for them. They told her they felt that Becker deserved someone who cared about him as much as he cared about her. Taylor wasn't looking forward to what their reactions were going to be like when they found out the truth about the relationship. Would they be angry at both of them for their deception or just Taylor since she was the newest one to the group and therefore wasn't quite like family yet – no matter what Becker seemed to think?

She really wasn't looking forward to finding out the answer to that one, and hoped that maybe their happiness over why they did it would outweigh their anger at being lied to.

She hoped. Right now though, she'd focus on her research and plans and she would try not to feel bad every time one of them gave her a cheerful smile whenever Becker would hold her hand. She'd pretend that she wasn't affected by Danny and Lester's nods every time Becker would hold her close and look like he was checking her over for damage after the team had been on an especially treacherous assignment.

As they worked together and kept up their farce of a relationship, she and Becker became very close friends. Oh, she was good friends with the rest of the team, but she could talk to Becker about the things that she couldn't voice to anyone else. When she got so tired that she couldn't see straight, Becker would take her to his place so that she could get some needed sleep. When there were days that she was so wrapped up in what she was doing that she lost track of time, he was the one that made sure she'd eat something that wasn't from the vending machine.

When she voiced the worry that someone could blindside him or still catch her alone, he took her to the training field and taught her to shoot. They quickly became close friends and it made their charade a little easier to keep up.

She was pretty sure that Becker was having the same issues with lying to his friends about his feelings that she was, but he reminded her that it was for the best until her work was completed. They couldn't take a chance of anything happening to her. He wouldn't allow it.

So, for her safety and to protect the work she was doing, they'd continue with the cover that they had created. She'd pretend that everything was normal and all right with her and that she wasn't working on something that was dangerous and that could cost her life. She'd pretend that she had reasons to duck her head or smile when she and Sarah and Abby were alone having girl talk.

She'd pretend that she really didn't hate living such a lie.

***

Six months after their original discussion, Becker came into her office late one night. He took one look and her face and then shut her door, leaning against it. The blinds were all closed, so she knew that they wouldn't be disturbed. Any other employee that was still here this late would just assume that she and Becker had decided to have some private time in her office. She could feel him studying her and then she heard his head go back quietly against the door.

"So it's time, then?" His voice was quiet.

Taylor nodded without looking up at him. She was rubbing her temples, trying to get some relief from the tension headache that had been building all day. Becker locked her door and then came to stand behind her, his hands gently massaging her neck and shoulders.

"I found the right number sequence from the artifact examinations to go back to the exact point of time that we need to." She closed her eyes, letting herself relax a little more into his hands. "I've tested it --" She felt him tense up a little behind her, and rushed to continue. " -- in a controlled circumstance in the lab. We'll have exactly three minutes to get Professor Cutter out of there, and to convince Helen Cutter that her shot killed him." Her voice tensed on the last sentence. "We need to figure out a way to do that or none of this will work."

"We could replace him with the clone she created, that could convince her." He shook his head. "Three minutes. That's not much time, Taylor."

She nodded. "I know."

There was silence for a moment as he worked on the tension in her neck. "The visions are getting worse."

It wasn't a question. Since she had told him about them, he had started noticing how her eyes would change when she would see them. There would be a different kind of tension in her as she watched them happen that no one else seemed to notice but him.

"Yeah," she whispered. "They keep crossing in and out of this reality much more rapidly as it gets to closer to when we have to do something. It's hard to keep up with them sometimes."

"Do you think they'll steady out for a little bit after we get Professor Cutter back until we can work out the sequence to save Stephen?"

"I don't know. I really hope so." She sighed. "Becker."

"What's wrong?"

"If we don't make sure that Helen still believes she killed Cutter when we do this, your concern may become a fact." She had been thinking a lot about this lately.

"That you're going to become her next, main target?" She nodded. "I'm fully aware of this. What's your point?"

"If she does come after me, things could get really damn messy and difficult. She really will want to kill me and anyone in her way of accomplishing that could be in serious danger."

"She's not going to be able to get close enough to you to harm you, Taylor," Becker said more calmly than she liked. "That's what this whole set up for the last six months has been about. She'll have to go through me and my boys in order to get to you."

Yes, that had been the original plan. However, after six months of pretending to be his girlfriend, she found that the idea of Becker getting hurt because of her really upset and scared her. She didn't want anything to happen to him.

"I have to do this tonight," she finally said, changing the subject. "It has to be done tonight if we're going to have any chance of this rescue succeeding."

"Then we'll get it done tonight."

Taylor pulled away from his hands so that she could turn her head and look up into his face. "We?"

"You really didn't think I was going to let you go through the anomaly and into that situation alone, did you?" Becker smiled down at her. "That is so not going to happen. I'm here to keep you safe and make sure that you get through this mission alive."

But who was going to make sure that _Becker_ would get through this all of this unharmed? Taylor had come to realize that sometime in the last six months she had fallen hard for Becker and really cared for him. He was putting his life on the line for her and that scared her.

***

There were a lot of things that Nick Cutter had come to expect from working with the ARC for a few years. Weirdness was pretty much all part of the package. However, what he didn't expect when he went back into the building after the explosion was for a hand to reach out from the shadows and grab him.

"Over here, Professor," the young woman who had a hand on his wrist directed.

"Hello, Professor," Becker greeted him. Well, it was Becker, but an older, harder looking Becker than the man he was sure that he had just left outside.

"What the bloody hell --"

"Look," the woman interrupted him. "I know you have plenty of questions, and I promise you that we will answer them. However, right now we don't have a great deal of time."

"Who are you people?"

"Taylor. That's Becker, you know him already." Taylor was tugging off his jacket. "Becker!"

"Here!"

Taylor caught the bullet proof vest and started fighting to get it onto Nick. "We're running out of time."

"Two minutes, Taylor!"

"I know!" She turned to look at Cutter. "Long story short, Helen killed you and screwed a whole hell of a lot of things up. We came to fix what she did, but she needs to believe you're dead, still."

"Taylor!"

"I know!"

"She killed me?"

"Shot you deader than dead," Taylor confirmed. "Look, you just have to trust me. I promise we'll explain everything as soon as we're safe."

The next few moments blurred together for Cutter as he confronted Helen and just like the two people he had seen before said, she shot him. Even having the vest on, it hurt like hell and for a moment, Nick closed his eyes, trying to get his breath back.

He heard Helen running off and then felt someone pulling him up. "Let's get you on your feet, Professor. We need to get out of here."

"Taylor?"

"All set. The clone is in his place for Connor to find."

"Did you give him instructions?"

"I asked him. He wanted to help."

"Did you bring the fake artifact?"

"Of course I did! Whose project is this, anyway?"

Wisely, Becker didn't answer and the world seemed to spin for a moment.

"Damn it, the anomaly is closing. We need to get through, now, Becker!"

"I got him." Nick felt himself lifted up in the air and the person carrying him began running. "Get your ass through there, Taylor."

"You first! He's more important!"

"Damn it, Taylor that is not a request!"

"Just go, I'm right behind you."

Cutter heard Becker mutter something unflattering about women and then they were running through an anomaly he hadn't known was there. He turned his head and looking over Becker's shoulder saw that they barely made it through before it closed behind them.

***

It wasn't very long after that Nick Cutter was sitting on the couch in Taylor's office. She was sitting behind the desk rubbing her head and Becker was against the door. Cutter had taken a few looks around and realized that they were actually in his office, though some changes had been made.

"I'll of course be moving my stuff to the office next door and giving you your rightful office back," Taylor said quietly when she caught him looking around. "This was only temporary."

"Who are you people?" Cutter's voice was reasonably calm.

This is where it could get tricky and she looked up at Becker. "You want to go get her while I explain to the Professor what's been going on?"

"Will you be all right?"

Cutter might have stiffened in indignation if he hadn't seen how Becker was looking at the woman. It didn't take him long to realize that Becker cared about her, and it wasn't him hurting her that he was worried about.

"I'll drink some tea and that should make most of the ache ease up."

Becker nodded and then looked back at Cutter. He gave him a smile. "It's glad to have you back with us, Professor. It hasn't been the same without you."

Cutter watched Becker leave, shutting the door behind him and then he turned back to the woman behind the desk.

"My name is Taylor Craig," she said slowly. "Sixteen years ago, you and Stephen Hart went through an anomaly and saved my life."

Nick's eyes registered a little bit of surprise. "Taylor? But you were a wee thing when we rescued you."

She cracked a small smile. "Well, sixteen years can make a person grow up."

"Sixteen years? It's been sixteen years for you since then?"

Taylor nodded. "It has been, for me, and for everyone else here. You see, Professor, sixteen years ago, Helen Cutter shot and killed you after she tried to take over and destroy the ARC." She raised a hand when he looked like he was going to protest something she said. "I know you have strong feelings about messing with the past and time lines and how changing even one thing in the past can affect our future or our existence. I'm asking you to please, hear me out first. Then I'll answer all of your questions and tell you how me doing this is not messing up the time line, but repairing it." She swallowed as she looked at him. "Please?"

Cutter looked at her hard for a long time. He could see that she was sincere in what she was saying, and she didn't sound insane. She also didn't seem like she wanted to stop evolution or wipe out all of humanity in some mad quest. "What is your field of study?"

She gave him a wan smile. "Evolutionary Biology."

He nodded. "Go on." He noticed that she looked a little pale and tired. "Miss Craig --"

"Taylor, please."

"Taylor, then. Are you sure you're well?"

She nodded, rubbing her temple. "Just a bit over tired is all. Becker would be happy to tell you how I haven't been eating or sleeping right while I've been working on how to get both you and Stephen back where you belong."

He raised an eyebrow at her. "You plan to raise us both from the dead."

"Neither one of you was supposed to die, and when you did, it messed with this reality and who knows how many others." She took a deep breath. "When I was twelve years old, I started having what my stepfather called strange episodes. If he knew the truth, the poor man would have felt guilty and probably had me committed somewhere expensive." She shook her head. "Not important. Anyway, I started having what I later realized were visions."

"Visions?" There was disbelief in his tone.

"Professor Cutter, you've seen doorways that take you to all kinds of points in time and you're going to scoff at a scientist saying she has visions?"

"When you put it that way, I guess not."

She nodded. "As I was saying, I started having these visions at different points in time. At first they were really confusing and they caused headaches because I was trying to separate them."

"Separate them?"

"The visions I was seeing were like two movie films being played at the same time, but they kept superimposing themselves over each other. A few months after the first few, the visions came more frequently and with much more intensity." She met his eyes. "From looking at the records and matching up the dates, the first few visions came the night shortly after Stephen died. They increased in frequency the day after you died."

Cutter stared at her. "You're not joking, are you?"

She shook her head. "No, I'm not. I did my best for most of my life to teach myself how to deal with them so I could continue with my schooling and my work and then come work for you. It wasn't until Lester hired me for the team that I found out about your deaths. It was through your notes and that artifact that I was finally able to realize what I had been seeing for so many years. The dates coincided."

"Two parallel time lines that had diverged when they weren't supposed to," Cutter breathed.

"Exactly. It was my theory that they started fracturing when Stephen was killed, but your death caused them to separate completely. Simply put, you weren't supposed to die and your ex-wife messed with more than just your life, Professor. She endangered the time line and could have caused the reality irreparable harm."

"Could have?"

"It's not irreparable," Taylor said quietly. "You're here now and as soon as we can get Stephen back, things will start becoming normal and the splintered time lines will become joined once more."

"You sound very sure of this."

"I'm positive that this is what needs to be done."

"Then what was all of that about making sure my clone got found in my place? If this was the right thing to do, why were you two so concerned about that?"

"That was my fault, I'm afraid, Professor," Becker said, opening the door in time to hear that last question. "I was worried that if Helen didn't hear of your body being discovered, she would start looking more closely at the ARC again and that Taylor would end up in danger if Helen found out what she was doing."

"Good point. Taylor's knowledge is something that Helen would want control of, or she'd kill her if she wouldn't agree to work for her or with her."

"I'd never work for that bitch," Taylor hissed.

"It'd be a death sentence then for sure," Becker said. He looked at Taylor. "Did you explain everything to his so far?" She nodded, standing up and coming around the desk. "In that case, Professor, there is someone that you need to see." Becker opened the door. "Come on in, Jenny."

Jenny stepped into the room and when she saw Cutter, she paled slightly. "Cutter?"

By the time Taylor and Becker slipped out of the office and closed the door, Cutter was already holding onto Jenny Lewis like she was an anchor.

***

"You should have told us all what you were about," Danny said angrily. "We could have helped."

"No, you would have drawn more interest in what I was doing than I needed," Taylor said.

The team had all gathered in one of the conference rooms after Lester had summoned them. Taylor was standing with her back against the wall next to the window and Becker was standing next to her. Jenny was still looking a little shell-shocked, but she wasn't looking like she was letting go of Cutter's hand any time soon. Connor couldn't stop staring and the hurt looks that Sarah and Abby kept giving her made Taylor flinch inside.

"We're a team, at least I thought we were," Danny said, his voice getting louder and starting to make Taylor's head pound.

"Why didn't you tell us, Taylor?" Abby's voice was a little gentler than Danny's was.

"The fewer people involved in this, the better," Lester stepped forward to address them all. "When I hired Ms. Craig and placed her on this team, I did so knowing exactly what she was going to do. As some of you tend to forget sometimes, I am the boss of this program. My decisions are the ones that should be heeded. Ms. Craig had no choice but to keep her project a secret from the rest of you."

"She didn't keep Becker in the dark about it," Sarah pointed out.

"It's not like she was going to keep her boyfriend from knowing what was going on," Connor said. "Couples have to share everything with each other."

"Taylor didn't tell me anything," Becker finally said, his voice having a tinge of warning in it as he looked at the rest of the team and then at Danny. "I figured it out on my own when I was watching her. Any of the clues I picked up, should have been easy for you to pick up if you had paid any attention to what was going on around you instead of being such a hard ass."

"It's my job to be a hard ass and keep the team together," Danny shot back.

"And apparently it was Taylor's job to fix what had been wrongly tampered with." That was Cutter's voice. "What she was doing placed her in enough danger and she wasn't going to risk her teammates, as well. What she was and is doing could have killed her, and she knew it."

Sarah's head whipped to look at Taylor. "You knew you were in danger?"

"I knew that doing what I was planning to do could have hurt me," she admitted. "I didn't know exactly what going back through an anomaly so close to an explosion would do to me." She swallowed. "But it was Becker who clued me in to the other danger I could be in that I never even thought of."

Danny looked at Becker. "What danger was that?"

"Helen Cutter," Becker bit out.

"Oh, yeah, if Helen knew what Taylor was working on she would have tried to kill her for sure. After all, she murdered her ex-husband." Connor said. Sarah hit him in the shoulder. "Sorry, Professor."

"Yes, well, if Helen Cutter was willing to kill the man she had been married to, nobody else would be safe from her. Ms. Craig would have been a walking target." Lester eyed Taylor. "Good thing for her that her boyfriend is head of security and weaponry."

"Yes, a good thing," Becker agreed. He looked back at Danny. "Taylor kept this all a secret to protect her team. You can't fault her for that."

"I would have done the same thing." Cutter's firm voice caused everyone in the room to turn to him. "She did exactly what I would have done in the same situation."

"What about the time lines?" Connor asked. "How does this work since you're not really dead. Is our future and present all messed up in some way?"

"No." That whisper was Taylor's. "No. We're correcting the time line. Professor Cutter wasn't supposed to die in the first place." Taylor really wanted to know why the room suddenly felt entirely too warm.

"Taylor!"

She was pretty sure that was Abby's voice yelling at her, and then she heard Sarah. Why were they yelling at her? She was trying to explain what she had done and why. She was trying to tell them why the time line wasn't in as much danger now.

She heard a curse from far away as the room started spinning on her. Maybe if she closed her eyes for a moment, everything would stay still.

She'd close her eyes just for a moment, and then she'd gather her thoughts and finish explaining to them what was going on.

_Just for a moment._


	2. Chapter 2

When Taylor opened her eyes, she was laying down on something and Becker and Cutter were sitting next to her. Confused, she lifted her head and saw that the entire team was there, as well. Lester wasn't, but she didn't doubt for one moment that he would know exactly what was going on and the moment she woke up. She dropped her head back down on the pillow, closing her eyes for a moment.

"What happened?" She automatically looked at Becker when she asked the question. He was holding her hand in his and it hurt her heart because she knew he was just keeping up the pretense that seemed crucial to her safety.

"You didn't eat before we went and got Cutter, did you?" There was a hint of anger in his voice.

"I was too focused on making sure nothing went wrong and I didn't want to get nauseous."

"I know that you didn't get much sleep that last night before the trip, either," he frowned. "Simply put, you collapsed in the conference room when things got a little too stressed and heated."

"I do _not_ faint when I am under stress!"

"That's not what I said, Taylor," Becker said, something underlying his words. "Very little sleep that last few days, almost nothing to eat for the last two. It's no wonder your body collapsed when we started bickering. You had done your part for the day and your body needed rest."

"Where am I?"

"At my house," Jenny said, coming into her line of vision. "It was the closest one with a guest room and I thought you'd be more comfortable here than in a hospital or the security barracks at the ARC."

That's when she realized that she was in a bedroom and that people were in chairs around the bed. Except for Danny. He was standing against the wall. She hated that she may have lost his trust because she had kept secrets from him. He had been liked her big brother. He was the big brother she knew she could go to about anything, and now...

Her eyes met his, and her question was directed at him. "How long have I been out?"

"Three days," he said, coming away from the wall and shouldering Becker aside for a moment so that he could look down at her. "You scared the hell out of us. Don't do it again."

"I don't plan on collapsing again," she assured him, a tentative smile on her face.

"See that you don't. It will piss me off."

"Taylor." She turned her head to look at Cutter. "Captain Becker and I have tried to explain to them why you know for a fact that you're not causing any damage to any of the time lines or realities by the actions you still plan to take."

"You mean my visions."

"You have visions?" Connor asked. "That is so cool."

"Not when those same visions hurt her, they're not, Connor," Cutter chastised him.

"Oh. No, that would suck. Sorry."

Taylor started explaining about her visions and what she had been seeing in them since they first started appearing. She winced to see tears in Abby's eyes when she confirmed that the night of her first vision had been the day Stephen died. Jenny's hand clenched when Taylor told them about how the visions became increasingly frequent after Cutter died.

"Have you seen anything since you brought back Professor Cutter," Sarah asked.

Taylor let out a breath and nodded. "The time lines and realities are coming back together like they're supposed to have been. This time line is becoming less opaque now. The two realities are still superimposed over each other, but ours is finally starting to become more solid. It hasn't been like this in a long time."

"So when you get Stephen back here..." Connor's voice trailed off.

"When I get Stephen back here, the realities will finally come back together as the one they are supposed to be."

Taylor's heart ached as she watched Abby nod and then head out of the room. Connor got to his feet at the same time Sarah did.

"No, Sarah. I'll go. She and I need to talk, anyway."

"Connor, you don't --"

"Yeah, I really kind of do."

Sarah searched his eyes and then nodded, sitting back down. Connor looked at the rest of them.

"Hopefully we'll be back before too long."

Everyone in the room was silent for a few minutes after Connor left the room. Finally, Cutter cleared his throat.

"Do you know the coordinates for going back and saving Stephen yet, Taylor?"

"Not yet. I was able to find the path to get you back, first, Professor. I'm still working on how to get to Stephen and get him out of that room before the animals attack him."

"Well, now we'll be working on it."

Taylor's eyes widened and there was hurt in her expression. She had done all of this work, all of this research and now he was going to take over and brush her aside? She swallowed hard. "What do you mean?"

"It will go much faster if the two of us are working together, don't you think?"

***

Connor caught up with Abby outside of the house.

"Abby, wait!"

She stopped when she heard him and from the set of her shoulders, he knew that she was crying. He'd been around her for sixteen years, so he could tell her moods almost as well as he could his.

He approached her quietly and then gathered her up in his arms. "You'd think you'd be happier about this."

"I don't want to hurt you, Connor," she whispered, her face against his chest as she cried. "I would never want to hurt you."

"Hey, none of that now," he said, a lump in his throat as he ran a hand through her hair. "I've always known you loved the bloke. I was never angry about that."

"I love you, too."

"I know you, do, and I love you. But Abby, it's possible to love more than one person. You loved Stephen so much and he was killed before you and he could do any exploring of those feelings." He tightened his arms around her. "Taylor is going to bring him back and you'll get that second chance."

"How can you be so understanding about all of this?"

"Would you rather I got angry and yelled at you about your heart and how it's been split in two all of these years?" He shook his head and kissed her hair. "I know how much you've hurt ever since he was killed and I can't be angry about that. I can't even be hurt about it. You've never given me anything but happiness." He pulled back to look down into her tear-streaked face. "But I'm thinking, maybe you and I are better as best friends than lovers, you know? We've done everything together and rarely been apart for the last sixteen years. Maybe it's time we give some other people room to be in our lives."

She sniffled and nodded. "You're always going to be my best friend, Connor, and I do love you. The last several years with you have been wonderful. I don't have any regrets for any of them, you know?"

"I know, Abby. I promise, I know. You'll always be my best friend, too. No one can compete with that. But now you get to see how things might turn out with your first love. No one should get in the way of that... and no one should run away from such a second chance."

She looked up at him and managed a smile. "Does this mean you're going to go have a serious talk with Sarah?"

"Sarah?" He looked dumbfounded for a moment. "Abby, I swear, we didn't -- we never would have --"

Abby socked him lightly in the arm. "I know that. It's not in either one of you to cheat. I also know that you guys have feelings for each other and you should see how it goes without worrying about me."

"You're one hell of a woman, Abby Maitland," he said fondly, kissing the top of her head.

"And you're one hell of a man, Connor Temple." She hugged him. "Now, go. You need to go get some things straightened out with Sarah."

He hugged her back and then nodded, stepping back. "I think you should go talk to Cutter and Taylor."

Abby let out a breath and gave him a watery smile. "I guess I should."

***

Taylor was alone in the bedroom when Abby knocked and came in.

"How are you feeling?" She asked her as she came to sit next to the bed.

"Pretty embarrassed, mostly," Taylor admitted. "I've never collapsed like that before."

"It sounds like you've been working yourself harder than any of us ever noticed you were."

Taylor shrugged and sighed. "It needs to be done and I'm the one with knowledge to make sure that it gets done."

"I've never seen Becker move as fast as he did when he saw you starting to fall," Abby said calmly, watching Taylor's face. "I don't think I've ever seen him look that worried, either."

Taylor bit the inside of her cheek. She knew that what Abby had seen was part of the pretense, and oh how it was starting to hurt. "I didn't mean to worry him." She really hadn't. That was the last thing she ever wanted to do.

"He really loves you," Abby continued. "We've all seen it."

"We've never said anything like that," Taylor murmured. "We haven't been together all that long."

"Long enough for him to tell Danny he was going to throw him out a window if he didn't get out of his way so he could take you somewhere to rest." She looked at Taylor. "Do you love Becker, Taylor? I mean, really love him, and not just fancy him a little. Becker is like a brother to Sarah and I, and he's saved our lives plenty of times. We both want to see him happy with someone that loves him and all that he is."

"I do love him, Abby," she said softly. At least with that she could be completely honest. "I love him with all of my heart."

"Then you should make sure he knows. A man like Becker isn't going to reveal his feelings first. There's too much a danger of getting hurt, and no man likes that idea. He's tough, but at heart he's a softie."

Taylor didn't know what to say. She couldn't tell Abby that their relationship was a farce geared towards keeping her safe so she could complete what she had set out to do. She knew that Becker didn't want anyone knowing the truth until this was all over.

"Abby..."

"I can see that you don't believe me, but you didn't see what I saw. He was really worried about you when you collapsed like that. You're going to have to take that first step of faith in your relationship." Abby squeezed her hand. "I know it's scary, but it will be worth it."

Taylor managed a small smile, and then after seeing the two of them leave the bedroom, she had to ask. "Are you and Connor okay?"

"Connor and I decided that we make better best friends than anything else."

"But you've been together for so long."

"Yes, we have. However, Connor always knew that I was in love with Stephen. When we lost Stephen and then Cutter, I think Connor and I gravitated to each other because we were what were left of the original team. I do love him, but..."

"But not like you loved Stephen."

"Not like I loved Stephen." Abby took a deep breath. "Do you really think that you can go back and save him? Do you think that you can repair the time lines that have fractured?"

Taylor nodded. "I know I can. I'm much surer now that we were able to bring back Professor Cutter and I'm starting to see one of the time lines starting to become more solid and stable." Taylor picked at the blanket for a moment. "Are you going to tell Stephen how you feel?"

Abby was silent and then nodded. "If you manage to bring him back to us, I'll tell him as soon as I get him alone."

"I'll hold you to that," Taylor said with a smile. "I'll make sure you get that chance."

***

The problem that Taylor had been running into with going back to save Stephen was in knowing where to manage to open an anomaly and get Stephen out before the predators they attacked him. She had to figure out a way to open the anomaly, save Stephen, and make sure that they closed the anomaly before anything came through after them.

"Easier said than done," she muttered.

"I'm going with you," Cutter said, coming into her office.

Taylor blinked and Becker looked up from the gun he was loading.

"Excuse me?"

"I'm going with you. Stephen doesn't know the two of you, but he knows me. He won't just trust your word that you're doing what's best for the time line."

Taylor stared at him as Becker shook his head.

"Professor Cutter, I don't think that's a very good idea," Taylor said, trying to figure out how to stop him from doing something so dangerous.

"Taylor already risked herself once to bring you back, Professor Cutter. We are not risking your life again."

"He's not going to listen to the two of you," Cutter insisted. "He doesn't know who the hell you are."

"But he knows me," a new voice said.

They all turned to the door as Abby walked in.

"Abby," Becker started, but she shook her head.

"When Stephen died, he and Cutter had been fighting because of Helen. He may not trust Cutter right now, but he'll trust me. He and I never fought, and he saved my life a few times."

"It's too dangerous, Abby," Cutter said. "Stephen would never forgive me if something happened to you."

"Well, we'll just have to make sure nothing happens to me, and we can ask Stephen when we bring him back if he would forgive you guys for anything happening to me." Abby looked at Taylor, knowing that she would back her up. "Taylor?"

Taylor nodded. "Professor Cutter is too valuable to risk going back with us. If we need someone to make Stephen believe that we're telling the truth, Abby can do that."

"No, I'm not letting you do this."

"Professor... Nick," Abby said gently. "Things have changed in the last sixteen years. One of those is that I have decided to go with my heart. My heart tells me that I need to go through the anomaly with Taylor and rescue Stephen."

"It's not like they're going to be going alone, Professor Cutter," Becker finally said. "I'll be going with them."

Taylor rounded on him. "No, you're not."

"The hell I'm not. The last time we went through the anomaly, we were facing you being shot be Helen. This time the danger is even larger. How did you expect to get Stephen out of a locked room of carnivores all by yourself, Taylor?"

Taylor glared at him. "I am not risking your life like that. It's bad enough that I'm risking Abby's!"

"_Abby_ is risking Abby's life," Abby argued. "It just happens that I'm going along with Taylor. She is not risking my life in any way. This is my choice."

"The more we argue, the less time we have to rescue Stephen," Becker pointed out. He looked at Cutter. "Jenny will not handle it well if she loses you again, so you are not going. I'll go with the girls and keep them safe, no matter what. I promise you that, Professor."

"Damn it, Becker," Taylor glared. "You are not --"

"Yes I am," he said with a glare of his own. "The two of you are not going into a room of hungry, angry carnivores by yourself. This discussion is over."

Taylor was so angry that she was shaking, but she wasn't going to blow up at Becker in front of the other two people. However, she thought he was carrying this over protective boyfriend thing just a little too far.

"Fine," she growled. "Now get ready. I should have the exact coordinates in less than an hour."

***

Stephen didn't know where his courage this time had come from, but he had known that he couldn't bear to let Nick sacrifice himself after everything that Helen had done to him. It was his fault that they were in this position to begin with. He had trusted Helen and he had let Nick down. So when Nick had decided he would go into the room with all of those monsters, Stephen had gone with his conscience and hit him in the jaw. It kept Nick down long enough for Stephen to go past him and lock himself into the room. With them locked in like this, it would give Nick and the others time to escape.

Yes, even that double crossing, insane bitch Helen would get away to safety.

When the beasts converged on him, blocking the door and Nick's face as he fought to get in to save him, Stephen was glad. Not because he was angry at Nick any longer, because really, what Helen had done had erased all of that anger towards him. No, he was glad because that meant he wouldn't see Nick watching what was happening. He knew that Nick wouldn't leave him until the absolute end.

Stephen had kept his eyes open when the beasts turned on him, but now he found himself closing his eyes. No matter how brave he had acted for Nick, no one wants to watch as they're eaten alive.

This would explain why he didn't see the anomaly open behind him. However, he did feel a hand close around his wrist and pull him up and heard a female voice that he didn't recognize.

"I think not, Stephen Hart. It's not your time to go and don't fight me on this or I'll bite you."

Stephen shook his head, not believing what he was hearing.

"Bite him? You're not going to get close enough to him to bite him." That was a male voice that he had never heard before and the voice sounded annoyed.

He was yanked backwards and he saw the sparkling shards of an anomaly flying past his face. Then he heard a series of angry roars followed by screams.

"TAYLOR!" That was the male voice again.

There was another scream and the sound of fighting. What the hell was going on? He felt arms go around him as he stumbled backwards. He could tell it was a female holding onto him, so he rolled to make sure that he didn't crush her. When he came to a stop, he found himself looking into a pair of blue eyes that he thought he would never see again.

"Abby?"

"Hello, Stephen."

Before he could ask her what was going on, he felt her lifted up and then someone was helping him to his feet.

"Where the hell are Taylor and Becker?" He found himself looking into the face of a man he didn't know. "If they got killed trying to save you, I'm going to beat the hell out of you."

"Quinn, back off."

Stephen turned around to see Nick standing there. There was something different about Nick, though. Something about his eyes seemed older to him.

"Nick?"

Nick dipped his head for a second and when he looked back at him, he smiled a little sadly. "Hello, Stephen."

"Would you like to tell me what's going on?"

Nick gave him a nod. "As soon as we get Taylor and Becker back, I'm sure that Taylor will fill you in on everything."

"Who is Taylor?" He remembered hearing someone calling Taylor's name while he was being dragged away from the roars and growls of the carnivores.

"Taylor is the reason the two of you are now alive," a voice he did recognize said. He turned to see an older James Lester standing nearby. "Welcome back, Stephen. Try not to kill anyone until you get briefed on the situation, will you?"

He would have said something but he heard screams and a warning shout.

"Incoming!"

"Stephen!" He turned in time to catch the gun that Nick had tossed him. He spun, aiming at the anomaly in time to see a man run through carrying a woman.

"It's behind us," the man yelled as he dove to the side, making sure the woman hit his body as they went down and not the floor.

Stephen didn't hesitate as he saw the future predator coming through the anomaly and he started firing the gun at it. He heard the gunfire from around the room and it didn't stop until the creature fell dead and the anomaly closed. When everything was silent, Stephen turned to Nick.

"Would someone tell me what the hell is going on?"

The man he didn't know was getting to his feet and helping the woman up. "I need some bandages. Taylor is bleeding!"

The woman batted at him. "It's just a scratch, damn it. The stupid thing got me with his claw."

"It's more than a scratch. I heard you when it happened."

"That's not important, right now," the woman argued. "Did we do it? Did we save Stephen?"

Nick came to stand beside Stephen. "That's Taylor Craig and Captain Becker. Taylor just saved your life." He looked at Stephen. "She saved mine, too."

The woman came over to stand in front of them, and the man in black came with her. Her arm shirt was shredded and her arm was bleeding.

"It was only the right thing to do, Cutter," Taylor said with a smile. "After all, you saved mine first."

***

Stephen was sitting in the conference room with the rest of the team as Becker bandaged Taylor's arm and she filled him on everything that had been going on.

"Let me get this straight. You're the eleven year old girl that we saved?"

Taylor nodded. "Yes, I am. The two of you have been dead for seventeen years now, and you shouldn't have died. Helen doing that caused a fracture of the time line and it messed with reality. I didn't know until Lester told me that the two of you were dead and that was why I had been seeing the things I've been seeing since I was eleven."

Stephen nodded. "So, you've spent all of this time in your field of study, and you decide that you were going to risk your life to save ours. Why?"

"You saved mine, first," Taylor said calmly. "I owed you."

"You were a kid. You didn't owe us anything."

"That's your opinion," she said as Becker finished bandaging her arm up. "However, Helen causing your death and flat out killing Cutter messed up the time line. It fractured it into two and it has caused a lot of problems for everyone -- even people not concerned with the ARC or have any knowledge about anomalies."

Stephen looked at Cutter. "Helen shot you?"

"Hurt like hell. Luckily, these two showed up and put me into a bulletproof vest before she pulled the trigger."

"It was Taylor's doing," Becker said. "She came up with all of the coordinates and deciphered a lot of things from the artifact that Cutter gave Connor before he died."

She shrugged. "It's what I've studied since I met you guys. I became a scientist because of you."

She looked up to see Lester at the door and she excused herself for a moment. Becker followed her to the door, but Taylor slipped out of the office and the door closed behind her. Becker stayed guarding the door. Apparently, he was supposed to be making sure the rest of the group stayed here until she came back.

"I feel like we should apologize to her," Stephen muttered as he and Cutter walked over to the furthest window from everyone.

"She might hit you if you do," Cutter murmured. "She seems to like her field of study very much. Her boyfriend likes her, too. So if you upset her he might try to shoot you."

"Has he tried to shoot you?"

"No, seems only women do that to me. He _did_ threaten to throw Danny out of a window, though."

"Danny?"

"Danny Quinn. He was made the new leader of the team after I died and Jenny left."

"Why did he threaten to throw Danny out the window?"

"Taylor collapsed after they brought me back and Danny was between Becker and getting Taylor taken care of. Danny apparently didn't move fast enough."

"Ahh."

"Luckily, Sarah and Abby were there and managed to diffuse the situation enough to allow Becker to get out of the room with the unconscious Taylor in his arms and to the guest room that Jenny offered up since it was so close."

"Abby." The tone of Stephen's voice changed as he looked across the room to where she was talking with Jenny. "She hasn't changed a bit in seventeen years, has she?"

"Jenny says her eyes are sadder," Cutter said quietly.

"Why is that?" Cutter gave him a look. "Oh. All of this time?"

"According to Connor, yes. All of this time."

"I guess Connor would know. He always made Abby his focus." Stephen sounded a bit disgruntled and unhappy about that.

"From what I understand, she's his best friend. He apparently has a yen for the Egyptologist, Sarah Page, and apparently has for a long time." He looked at Stephen. "Seems Abby has been carrying a torch for this dead tracker/hunter best friend of mine."

Before Stephen could say anything, the door opened and Taylor came back into the conference room. Lester followed her and Becker took one look at her before moving to her side.

"Did it work," Becker asked her.

Taylor looked at Becker for a long moment and then turned her head to look at Cutter and Stephen.

"It worked. The fractured time lines have now stabilized into one time line."

Stephen couldn't help but notice that there was something sad in Taylor's eyes and he wondered what had caused it. Before he could think of what to say, she turned and left the room, but Lester shook his head at Becker, not allowing the other man to follow her out.

***

A few days later, Stephen was reading through some of the transcripts of things he had missed over the last seventeen years when there was a knock on the office door. He looked up to see Danny Quinn standing there. He tilted his head at Danny and the other man smiled, holding up a couple of bottles of beer.

"I figured that you could use one or a dozen of these," he said, coming in and shutting the door behind him. "How are you settling in?"

"She gave me an office." The look on his face said he wasn't thrilled about that. "I don't do paperwork."

"I'm pretty sure it was just something she did to send a clear message through the ARC that you're back and you're a ranking member of the team. Lester backed her on it." He took a drink from his beer after handing one to Stephen. "All of us have our own offices, but they rarely get used. We prefer the range or the labs. The offices ate more for cat napping, an extra set of clothes or having private chats."

Stephen paused. "Like this one."

"Like this one." Danny nodded. "About Abby."

Stephen felt himself stiffen. "What about her?"

"She's mourned you for seventeen years, mate. I don't want to see her have to mourn you again."

He narrowed his eyes and lowered the beer. "What are you trying to say, Quinn?"

"Just that if you break that heart that's been held in reserve for you for so long, I'll kill you." There was no anger in Danny's eyes, only a promise. "She and Sarah and Taylor, they're like my sisters. With Abby and Sarah, I've watched them and worked with them for the last seventeen years. I've seen them go through so many kinds of hell, and I won't let Abby go through the kind of hell I know a broken heart will put her through."

"So, I either tell her I love her or you're going to kill me... and waste everything Taylor risked herself to do?"

Danny looked at Stephen. "I'm only saying that if you do love her, you let her know that you do. If you don't love her, you let her know that, too. If you pretend to have feelings and lead her on, I'll put you into a coma. That won't shatter the time lines again."

Stephen stared at him. "I don't take it lightly when someone threatens me, Quinn."

"And I don't take lightly to my baby sister being hurt." He shook his head. "Connor told me that when you died, a piece of Abby died, too. She's never loved anyone like that since. I know that you made some stupid choices with Helen Cutter, but Taylor has done more than fix the time line by bringing you back. She gave you a second chance and I hope that you use it wisely, Hart."

"You're a right bastard, Quinn," Stephen said as he took a drink from the beer, his eyes on Danny.

"So I've been told. So I've been told."

***

It was about a month later that the team had gathered in one of the conference rooms to make some decisions about what should come next on their agenda. Taylor said that all of her visions showed that the time lines had come back together and were now corrected, but that meant that there was still twice as many anomalies opening all over the place.

Finally, Nick's idea was that they should be split into two field units in order to make sure that every situation was covered as best as it could be. Jenny would be coming back to the ARC as the public liaison, which made Lester extremely happy.

"The second team will be led by Quinn and he'll have Sarah, Becker and Taylor with him. That way, Taylor and I can both be on hand for --" Cutter stopped, looking around the conference room. "Where's Taylor?"

Becker's head jerked up as his eyes flew to her empty chair. "She was here a few moments ago."

"She went out to her car," Connor said. "She said she needed to get something out of it."

"You let her go alone?" Becker demanded, getting to his feet and heading for the door.

As his hand touched the door knob, all of them heard the sudden explosion that came from outside.

"Taylor!" Abby screamed as she and Sarah followed behind in Becker's mad dash down the hall. The rest of them followed them, with Connor apologizing as they ran.

When Becker slammed out the door, he started running to the now burning car that was in its usual place. Stephen kicked up his pace and tackled Becker to the ground before he could get closer to the car -- and the fireball it had become.

"Let me go, damn you! Taylor needs our help," Becker struggled and he managed to slam his elbow into Stephen's face.

Cutter and Danny went to help Stephen and the three of them managed to pull Becker to a safe distance away from the car.

"Easy mate," Danny said. "She's gone. No one could have survived that explosion." He tightened his grip on Becker. "She would have gone quickly. There would have been no pain."

"Danny?"

They all managed to hear the quiet voice and when they saw a soot-stained and bloody Taylor getting up from against the wall of the building, they all stared at her.

It was Cutter that managed to break his shock first. "Taylor, what happened?"

"I was coming out to get something from the car, something that I wanted to talk over with Sarah. One of the guards stopped me at the elevator. He said..." Taylor swallowed, wiping a hand over her eyes. "He said that his orders were that I wasn't to go anywhere alone. I told him that I was just going to my car and he could see everything from his post, but he wouldn't allow it. He walked with me, but told me to give him my keys, and to stay a few feet behind him, j-just in case." She shook her head, trying to erase the scene from her mind. "I was behind him and when he turned the key in the door lock, everything exploded. I guess I was thrown back into the wall because I was..."

Danny looked from Taylor to the car, and then back to Taylor. "Are you all right?"

"I don't -- I don't know." She took a breath. "Everything hurts a bit, but it's nothing compared to..." Her voice trailed off and she paled as she looked back at her car.

Stephen let go of Becker and approached Taylor. "Let's get you inside and cleaned up so we can check you out." He looked at Becker and Danny. "She could be going into shock."

Becker shrugged them off and went to Taylor's side and walked inside with her and Stephen. Danny watched them go and then he looked at the rest of the group before his eyes fell on Cutter.

"Well, I'd say it's a good bet that Helen knows the two of you are alive and that Taylor had something to do with it."

***

It was night time at the ARC and Taylor sat behind her desk, putting the finishing touches on the letter in front of her. The visions had started coming apart again and this time she was going to stop them before anything could cause the time line to splinter. She was not about to let any of her team -- her friends -- go through all of that again. She looked down at the last file she was working on and couldn't help a sad smile.

Even if she could survive what she had to do, she knew that there wasn't a chance for her to have that happy ever after she had been determined to get for her friends. It just wasn't meant to be. She loved Becker, but from his point of view, she was nothing more than a good friend. When her safety could be determined without a shadow of a doubt, they'd tell the truth about the deception that they had been living for the last year.

She didn't know if it was a good or a bad thing that she was pretty sure she wouldn't survive this last mission? She had never loved any one like she loved him and now he would never know because she couldn't tell him and face his rejection. Not right now.

She frowned, tapping her pen to her chin. In theory, she guessed she could tell Becker the truth. She could always write him a letter that said more than what she had revealed in the letter for all of the others. It was perhaps a cowardly way to do it, but she felt he deserved to know the truth. Better to do it like this where he wouldn't feel pressure to do something about it or feel guilty because he had to break her heart.

She spent the next hour trying to write the perfect letter to Becker. In it, she told him her feelings, as well as thanked him for everything he had done for her in the past year. If it hadn't been for him and his help, she never would have been able to succeed in her job or return the time line to its proper state of being. She sealed the letter, and then placed it with the things that would be delivered to Becker when the guard came to see if she needed anything.

She stood up, clutching something tightly in her hand. Of course she wouldn't need anything. By the time the guard came to check on her, she would be long gone from here.

Hopefully, soon after, so would the last remaining threat to this time line at its people.

***

"You bloody bastard!"

Everyone in the office of James Lester looked up in surprise as Becker burst into the room. In his hand was a three ring binder that went sailing onto Lester's desk. Jenny, Cutter and Stephen moved out of the way of the ensuing argument until they could figure out what was going on and why Becker looked so angry.

"Is there a problem, Captain Becker?" Lester's voice was cool as he spoke, trying to maintain authority while the others looked on in interest.

"You know damn well there's a problem, Lester," Becker roared. The raised voices brought the rest of team running to Lester's office. "She's gone after Helen Cutter! By herself!"

"I thought you had a regiment of guards on her at all times to make sure nothing happened to her." Lester was still sitting behind his desk, appearing unruffled.

"I do! However, last night, the guard that was going to meet with her to walk her to her car was detained. He was detained by _you_!" Becker's eyes were hard and angry. "By the time he got to her office, she was gone."

"I don't see how that makes it my fault. She must have simply gotten tired of waiting."

"Don't give me that bullshit. You _knew_ what she was going to do! You knew and you did nothing to stop her."

"As you have no doubt noticed, I don't exactly seem to have complete control over the scientists on the investigative teams."

Danny put a hand on Becker's arm, probably thinking he had to stop the other man from doing something regrettable. Well, someone would regret it, he was sure. He just didn't know if it would be their team that did.

"Lester, how long have you known that Taylor was going to go looking for Helen," Danny demanded.

"I don't see how that's any of your business, Mr. Quinn."

"How long have you known?" Danny demanded again.

Jenny looked at Lester. "James, what have you done?"

"Miss Craig seems to have decided that she needed to go after Helen Cutter to make sure that the time line doesn't splinter again," Lester's voice was a lot calmer than anyone else in the room was feeling. "She didn't see the need to tell her boyfriend. Well, pretend boyfriend. Now that Helen knew she was the one that brought Cutter and Hart back, it wasn't like you had to keep pretending, now was it." He paused. "Oh. I see you didn't tell them."

Cutter and Stephen stood up, thinking that maybe Danny might need their help holding Becker back when they saw the look of rage cross his face at Lester's words.

"Quinn has a very good question," Cutter said. "How long have you known that Taylor was going after Helen? You had to have known because she would have needed your help to elude the guards and make sure that she didn't set off Connor's alarms when she opened up an anomaly."

Stephen frowned. "She's been planning this since she brought me back, hasn't she?"

"Actually, she decided that it would need to be done when she first started her research into bringing the both of you back," Lester said, still sitting behind his desk. "It was her idea."

"She saw something," Becker said, no longer yelling. "She saw one of her visions, and she told you about it."

Lester didn't say anything.

"So help me, James Lester, if you don't tell him what he wants to know I will hit you myself!" Jenny sounded a bit crankier than she had sounded earlier.

"What did she _see_?" Becker's voice had gotten even quieter.

"The day her car was bombed, she saw the time line start to become opaque again. It wasn't splitting, exactly, but she saw something that really upset her in those visions." Lester looked around the room. "She wouldn't tell me exactly what she saw, only that she wasn't going to let Helen Cutter hurt anyone here ever again."

"Lester," Cutter said. "Did she give you the coordinates to where she was going?"

"Now why would she have done something like that? It's not like I could make sense out of her codes and notes."

"Notes! Where are her notes?"

"Probably in her office where she keeps everything work related."

"No," Becker said quietly. "There's nothing like that in her office. I looked when I saw this." He pointed to the binder he had thrown at Lester.

"Becker," Abby finally said. "Where's her laptop? She never goes anywhere without it."

"She wouldn't be traveling through the anomalies with her laptop," Danny said, shaking his head.

"No, she wouldn't be," Abby agreed. "But she would have made sure that it was some place safe. Some place that she trusted nothing would happen to it, and that it would get to someone knowledgeable if anything happened to her."

"Becker's place," Danny said with surety. "If there was any place that she felt like she was completely safe, it would be with Becker. It makes sense that she would leave something as important to herself and her work as her laptop some place at Becker's."

Becker turned to leave, but he stopped at the door. "Lester, if she dies, I promise you, I will make you wish you had gone with her."

***

Danny and Abby were correct in that Taylor had stashed her laptop at Becker's house. They walked into the house and after searching the house, Becker found the laptop beneath the mattress of his bed. Connor raised an eyebrow when he saw Becker retrieve it.

"I thought you were just pretending to be together." Because Connor still hadn't really learned tact in all of these years.

Becker ran a hand over the laptop. "It wasn't pretend for me. I never pretended. What I feel for her was real." He frowned. "_Is_ real," he corrected himself. He was refusing to even consider that they might not get to Taylor in time to stop anything from happening to her.

Becker took the laptop downstairs to the living room and handed it to Cutter. "They were right. It was upstairs."

"Uh, guys," Sarah called as she came into the living room. "It looks like Taylor left us something else." She held up the artifact.

"What the hell is that?" Stephen asked.

"It's an artifact from the future," Connor said quietly. "It's one of the things that Helen killed Cutter over."

"Did you ever figure out exactly what it does?" Cutter asked.

"A little bit," Sarah said. "It mimicked that model you were building. But Taylor was able to find patterns to either trace to unopened anomalies or to open her own." Silence filled the room and the ramifications of that information settled onto all of them.

"She must have left it here for Cutter to use after she --" Abby swallowed, shaking her head. "She wouldn't have wanted to let Helen get her hands on it."

Sarah came over to them and handed the artifact to Cutter. When she walked away, Stephen looked at him for a long moment before speaking.

"Do you think you can figure out the coordinates that Taylor used and get her back?" His voice was low.

"I think I'd better because if Helen kills her, not only will something happen to this time line, but I think Becker really will kill Lester." Stephen snorted, not sure that this was a bad thing. "It would also allow Helen to then try to take us out again."

Stephen growled a little as he watched Abby, Sarah and Jenny talking. "I wouldn't allow someone to do that her all over again. I can face death, but I can't face losing that face again." He looked back at Cutter. "I won't accept someone putting that look back in her eyes that I saw when I first came here."

Cutter nodded. "We need to find Taylor..."

"...and stop Helen," Stephen said quietly. "We have to stop her once and for all. We can't allow her to keep threatening this world like she is. We can't risk their lives because of her." He met Cutter's eyes. "I'm not losing Abby because of that bitch, Cutter. I'm not letting her kill or hurt anyone else. It has to stop. _We_ have to stop it."

"Then we're agreed on what has to happen next," Cutter said with determination, relieved that Stephen was agreeing with him on this.

He had lost Claudia and then lost Jenny because of Helen. He wasn't going to lose Jenny again. He wasn't going to allow anyone here to lose any one they loved again.

***

"Helen!"

Helen Cutter turned in surprise, and then smirked at the woman who had appeared to confront her. "Oh, well, looks like Cutter's little student has more guts than brains." She shook her head. "Somehow, I'm not really surprised."

"It ends now, Helen. You're not going to hurt anyone else with your schemes and your insanity. You're not going to kill anyone else just because you think that your way is the right way to make life happen or not happen. It's not your right to try to change evolution."

"But it's perfectly fine for you to mess with realities and bring dead people back to life to a future time?"

"They weren't supposed to die like they did and not when they did. Your murders of them caused fractures in the time line! You messed with things beyond your control and changed things that were not meant to be fooled with." Taylor shook her head. "All I did was clean up your messes."

"I was trying to create a better future. I'm trying to create a future where we weren't destroying everything on this entire beautiful planet. Humanity is a disease. A disease that I intend to put an end to."

"NO!" Taylor yelled at her, losing her hold on the temper she had fought so hard to control through all of this. "You are not hurting anyone else. Don't you get it? You're insane! You started out as this brilliant scientist that discovered that there was something so wonderful out there. Instead of respecting it and studying it and learning all about it like a true scientist, you became power hungry. You wanted to control the anomalies so that you could control what would happen with each world you went to. You didn't become a better scientist, Helen. You became nothing but a murderer!"

"And what do you think you're going to do about it little girl?" Helen asked, turning to walk towards her.

Taylor lifted the handgun she had brought through the anomaly with her and aimed it at Helen. "Kill you before you can kill anyone else."

"Do you really think that your heroes will take kindly to you killing me? I mean, I'm sure that even they would draw the line at cold-blooded murder." Helen's voice was full of disdain. "Kill me, and you lose them and their respect."

Taylor's hand shook slightly at that. Helen was scraping at her confidence and her belief in where she had been fitting in with the teams.

"And do you think Captain Becker will want a murderer for a girlfriend?" Helen continued. "It could destroy his career if he were to stay with you after finding out you killed someone.""

"Someone who had already killed! Someone who will continue to keep killing people if she isn't stop--!"

Whatever Taylor was going to say ended up being finished in a scream as the knife flew from Helen's hand and impaled itself deep into her chest. She knew it had missed her heart or else she would have been dead already. However, she did have enough training to know that the knife had quite possibly punctured her lung. When she went down, she could feel that it was starting to get harder to draw air and she could taste blood in her mouth. She watched as Helen came closer to her, and her fear was starting to build. She hadn't been afraid for herself when she got here, but now she found that she was very afraid.

"You're such a brave and stupid girl, little Taylor Craig." Helen said leaning over her with another knife. "Now the only thing to do is decide if I'm going to put you out of your misery, or if I'm going to leave you for the predators out here to find." She smiled. "If you tell me how you did it, I'll make your death quick and easy. Tell me how you managed to bring them back, Taylor."

Taylor tried to breathe and she ended up coughing a spray of blood right into Helen's face.

"HELEN!"

Both women were surprised to hear that voice out here.

"Cutter," Taylor whispered, coughing up blood again.

Helen straightened from her crouch, but she still kept her knife ready to go down into Taylor and kill her.

"Back away from her Helen," Cutter advised. "You can't get away with murder this time."

"What are you going to do, Nick, shoot me?"

"Why not? You shot me. Tit for tat, as they say."

"But you're not like that Nick, you never have been." She looked around. "I know Stephen wouldn't hurt me. He can't say no to me about anything."

"I'm saying no, now, Helen. You're not going to hurt Taylor any further. You're not going to hurt anyone else ever again."

"She's already dying," Helen said with her trademark smirk of satisfaction. "Punctured a lung, might have nicked her heart. She's slowly suffocating on her own blood you know."

"Cutter, I know that she's your wife --"

"Ex." Both Cutter and Stephen were quick to say.

"But I will shoot her if she doesn't back away from Taylor." Becker's voice was cold and firm and there was no hesitation in his words. "I won't miss, and I have Danny to back me up here. We will kill her if she doesn't get away from Taylor."

Cutter looked at Stephen who nodded, and then looked back at the woman that had caused them and so many other people such pain. "Helen, back away from Taylor and drop your knife. We won't be able to stop Becker if you try to hurt the woman he loves anymore."

"The woman he loves? That was all a ruse to keep guards around her all of the time. They were never lovers."

"You're wrong about that," Becker said, his voice tight with emotion. "I love Taylor. I've always loved her and if you hurt her any further, I will not hesitate to kill you. Not shoot, kill. No one here will stop me."

Helen laughed at him and her free knife came down over Taylor. A gunshot rang out, and then several more shots as other guns were fired. The final shot came from Becker and Helen Cutter finally went down.

"Cover me," Becker shouted as he ran down the sandy slope to get to Taylor. God, there was so much blood and she was so pale.

He heard others around him, checking to make sure that Helen really was dead as he focused on Taylor.

"Taylor love," he whispered. "Come on; open your eyes for me. Come on."

"Becker," She heard his voice and coughed up another spout of blood as she said his name. "You came for me. Why?"

He didn't bother to hide the hint of tears in his eyes. "You little idiot. Of course I came after you. I love you."

"Don't have to pretend now, Becker. The wicked witch of the anomalies is dead."

Becker tore off some of her shirt to see how bad the knife wound was and then used what was left of the shirt to put pressure on the wound to slow the flow of blood. "I'm not pretending, Taylor Craig. I love you. I have loved you. It has always been real for me, no matter how it started out."

"That's good," she murmured. "I told Abby that I love you, too." Taylor's voice faded as she closed her eyes.

"Taylor?" She didn't respond to Becker's voice. "Taylor, answer me love. Taylor!" He didn't dare shake her in her condition like instincts warred with him to. Instead, he turned his head to where the other men were. "Cutter! Danny! We have got to get her back through the anomaly and to emergency care. Looks like Helen was right and a lung has been punctured. Taylor is unconscious."

"Go! Stephen will go with you. Hurry. Get her to safety and you make sure that they save her. Danny and I need to clean up here." Cutter's voice was firm, but worried as he gave the orders.

The two men watched Becker and Stephen race up the rocky mountain where the anomaly was waiting with Taylor in Becker's arms and then turned back to Helen's body.

"Are we taking it back?" Danny questioned with some distaste in his tone.

"Yeah. We have to. It shows that she can't hurt us anymore. Her time is done. It's time to bury her and the past with her." He looked at Danny. "They're safe now."

Danny nodded. "Let's get back then and make sure of that. I don't want Taylor to survive only to see visions that tell her that we should have handled Helen another way."

"Or that Taylor had to kill her herself."

"God. That girl doesn't need any more pressure like that on her." Danny sounded a little like a protective big brother as he said that.

"I couldn't agree more," Cutter said as they got to work on what they needed to do before the anomaly closed.

Danny and Cutter cleaned up the battle sight and then wrapped Helen in a blanket. Once it was secured with ropes and blankets, they headed home to give the news to the rest of the team. They wanted this chapter in the ARC over with as quickly as possible.

***

After Helen's body was deposited in the ARC morgue for safe keeping, Danny and Cutter headed to the military hospital where they knew Becker would have insisted on taking Taylor. When they arrived at the emergency room, everyone was standing or seated and their faces all had the same worried expressions. Stephen was standing against the wall holding Abby against him. He was murmuring something to her in a voice so quiet that no one else could hear what he was saying. Connor was sitting on a bench with his arm around Sarah and they both were completely quiet. Both of the men noticed that Becker was nowhere to be found and that couldn't be good. Danny went to talk to one of the nurses or doctors that were at the emergency desk while Cutter walked over to sit next to Jenny.

He put his arm around her and leaned in to kiss her temple. "Is there any news?"

Jenny sighed and shook her head, leaning against him. "Taylor is in surgery and the doctors haven't been able to tell us anything yet. There was so much blood all over the place and Becker looked like he was ready to tear everyone in here apart if someone didn't help her."

"Where is Becker?"

"I don't have any idea. I think he may be standing outside the surgery for all that we know. He disappeared through those doors carrying her and we haven't seen him since."

Cutter frowned. "After seeing how he reacted to her being missing and then what happened when we got through that anomaly, I can't really be surprised at his behavior. He really is afraid that he's going to lose her after everything that they've managed to get through."

"Was it really bad?" Jenny's voice was quiet.

"She stabbed Taylor before we got there," Cutter said sadly. "When we arrived, Taylor was on the ground bleeding and Helen was leaning over her with another knife."

"No matter what she may have said, Cutter, Helen would have killed Taylor if you guys hadn't gotten there in time."

"But we didn't get there in time to protect her, Jenny. If we had just figured out the coordinates sooner, none of us would be sitting in this place right now."

"Maybe or maybe not. However, you guys got there in time to prevent her from killing her. That's the most important thing in all of this. You got there in time to keep Helen from killing her, Cutter."

He let out a breath, pulling her a little closer to him. "We're not sure of that, yet, Jenny. We won't know until the doctors tell us that she's going to pull through this."

"Even if she doesn't – and I don't believe that's a possibility – you still managed to save the lives of everyone else here. There is no way that Helen wouldn't have come after everyone connected to you and Stephen after she killed Taylor."

Cutter tightened his arms around her, not liking the possibility of what she was saying.

"Stephen told us that Helen wasn't a threat any longer. Is she…"

"She's dead, yes."

He couldn't miss the breath that Jenny let out, nor the way that some of the tension in her shoulders eased. "Did you?"

He shook his head. "No. I didn't get the chance. She made a move against Taylor and Becker fired first. Becker and Danny took her out before I had to."

"Could you have made that choice?"

"I made that choice before we even went through." He reached out to run a hand along her hair. "Stephen and I decided at Becker's place that we weren't going to let her hurt anyone else ever again. We weren't going to let her cause you and Abby even more pain."

"Stephen didn't seem affected by her death."

"We both said goodbye to Helen a very long time ago, Jenny. The woman that we had both loved died many years before today. The person that we had to deal with to save Taylor, that wasn't the same woman I had married. She was someone that needed to be taken down before she killed anyone else. If Becker or Danny hadn't been quick enough, Stephen would have fired on her without batting an eye."

"The two of you look good alive and free."

"We're both somewhat attached to being alive," Cutter laughed softly. He turned her face gently towards his so he could look into her eyes. "Each of us have someone that we're very attached to and would like to stay alive to be with."

There was the sheen of tears in Jenny's eyes. "It doesn't seem right that I should be this relieved and happy while Taylor is fighting for her life."

"She's going to be okay, Jenny. That girl has faced so much and faced so many dangers with dangerous carnivores and explosions while bringing Stephen and I back. Any girl that has done that isn't going to be taken out by a stab wound from a crazy bitch like Helen." He smiled at her. "And she would be the first person to tell you that she doesn't blame you for being happy. She told me and Stephen that you and Abby were two of the bigger reasons that she wanted to go through with her plans."

"I would still like to hit James for helping her open an anomaly and not telling any of us when he _knew_ that she could get killed there."

"Oh, I'm sure that in the future you'll have plenty of reasons and opportunities to hit Lester."

***

"They've been gone for so long," Abby fretted. "Why won't they _tell_ us anything?"

Stephen tightened his arms around her. "She's in surgery, love. They can't tell us anything until they know that they've been able to repair anything that needs to be repaired. Surgery on a punctured lung can be a tricky process and they have to move carefully and slowly while they're trying to fix the damage."

"I should have gone with her. I could have kept Helen from hurting her."

Stephen didn't even have words to describe the terror that went through him at her words. "If you had gone with her, Abby, Helen would have killed you and not just wounded you like she did to Taylor. You would have been dead before we would have been able to find you."

Abby turned her face up to look into his. "You think she really would have killed me?"

Stephen nodded and he wasn't able to hide the fear on his face at that knowledge as he pulled Abby closer to him. "She would have because of who you are. You're family to Cutter and I love you. Killing you would have caused a part of me to be killed all over again, Abby. She wouldn't have hesitated because she would have enjoyed causing us more pain since Taylor had brought us back to where we belong."

Abby saw the fear in his eyes and she was surprised, because she didn't think she had ever seen Stephen scared of anything before. "She's dead, Stephen," she said soothingly. "She's dead and she can't hurt you or me anymore."

"I honestly don't think that I could go through having anything like that happening to you, Abby. When Taylor was hurt, all I could think was that I was glad that it wasn't you and that you were far away from her reach." He shook his head, looking down into her face. "All I wanted to do was stop her so that I could get back to you and see for myself that you were safe and still alive."

"And I'm here," she said gently. "Nothing bad happened to me and when you got back with Becker and Taylor, I was just fine and perfectly safe." She reached up and put her hands on either side of his face. "We're safe and she can't hurt us any longer, Stephen. Either of us."

Stephen nodded and leaned down to rest his forehead against hers. "I have never been as scared as I was when I started thinking about her getting past us and coming back to the ARC to hurt you, Abby."

"You don't have to be scared any longer, Stephen," she said as she held onto him. "You guys took care of that."

"No. Becker took care of that. Cutter and I aren't the ones who stopped her."

"But you would have done so if you needed to. You guys backed him up and let him do what needed to be done to save the woman he loved."

***

It wasn't hard for Danny to find out where Becker was. The doctor at the nurses' station in the emergency room had been happy to take him to where his friend was waiting. As Danny walked down the hall after going through the double doors the doctor had escorted him through, he could see Becker standing in front of a door and staring at it. He was almost positive that he had never seen the military man look so tense or so worried. Becker didn't even turn when Danny came up to him and looked through the small window in the door. He frowned when he realized that that window allowed them to look in on where Taylor was having surgery done on her and he didn't like the way that scene appeared.

"She's going to pull through this, Becker," Danny finally said, turning from the surgery to look at his teammate. "She's tough and she's already been through a lot. She's not going to let this kind of thing stop her."

"She shouldn't have to go through this, Danny." Becker didn't turn from where he was watching the doctors working on Taylor. "I was supposed to protect her and keep her safe from Helen and I didn't."

"You didn't know that she was going to through an anomaly and go hunting for the bitch, Becker. The last year and change you've taken such good care of her. You've done everything that you had promised her you would do."

"I knew she was worried that Helen would show up and hurt someone again. I knew she was worried that she would target Professor Cutter and Stephen again. Her entire focus was on bringing those men back and repairing the time line that she kept seeing fracture in front of her eyes. I knew all of that. I should have known that she would try to do something to protect all of that."

"You can't know everything."

"I should have known _this_, Danny. I have been working so close to her all of this time and I know how dedicated she is to her science and how determined she is to fix things. I know Taylor better than anyone else on this team. Hell, sometimes I know her better than she knows herself."

"You had no way of knowing that she would do something so foolhardy."

This time Becker turned to look at him for a second. "It's _Taylor_."

Danny sighed and nodded his head. "Okay, you have a point. Any person that would come up with a plan to go into a building that was exploding to save someone from a gunshot wound and death wouldn't hesitate to risk her own life to protect other people she cared about."

Becker turned back to look into the room where the doctors were working to save her life. "I spent nearly every day with her, Danny. I love her and I know she loves me, so tell me why in the hell she didn't trust me enough to tell me that she was planning on confronting Helen."

"Do you honestly believe that she didn't tell you because she didn't trust you? Becker, she left her laptop with everything on it and that artifact at your house because she knew they would be safe with you. She _trusted_ you to keep them safe if anything happened to her."

"Then why? Why couldn't she have told me? I would have gone with her and helped her!"

"Maybe that's the reason right there." When Becker gave him a blank look, Danny shook his head. "She loves you, mate, and she knew that you would follow her right into danger if you knew what she was going to do. You've told me how all you have wanted to do was protect her and keep her safe because she means so much to you. Don't you think maybe that desire goes both ways? It seems to me that the reason she didn't tell you what she was doing was because she wanted to protect _you_."

Becker turned back to look in on Taylor. "She didn't need to worry about me like that."

"Need to or not, people in love don't always act rationally. She wanted to protect you and keep you safe from Helen, too, Becker. Do you remember the way she looked the day her car exploded? You probably didn't notice the way she kept looking at you after that, but I did. I could see it in her eyes that she kept thinking that it could have been you that was killed in that explosion instead of one of your men. Why? Because she loves you and you were usually the one on guard detail with her." He sighed. "I don't think she went after Helen just to protect the professor and Hart. I think she went after the bitch to protect you." When Becker didn't respond, Danny put his hand on his shoulder and squeezed gently. "She cares about those men and about the team, but she _loves_ you. In her mind, trying to protect you is worth any risk that she has to take."

"I was supposed to be the one protecting her, Danny," Becker finally whispered. "I was supposed to keep her safe."

"That's not the way of things when it comes to people in love, Becker. If there is one thing that I have learned it's that relationships are a give and take. You both give and you both benefit from the taking. She's always going to want to protect you as much as you want to protect her. You can't stop her from feeling like that, no matter how much stronger you may be. A wise man wouldn't even try."

Becker sighed. "She has to come through this. I can't lose her now, Danny. I just can't."

***

The first thing that Taylor became aware of was that her chest hurt something awful. The second thing that she became aware of was that the light behind her closed lids seemed a little too white to be the sun in the desert where she remembered being. She swallowed, realizing that she was really thirsty and tried to open her eyes. However, she immediately shut her eyes as the lights above her were just too bright.

"Becker," she whispered. "Where's Becker?" God, please let him be okay." She felt someone's hand close around hers. "Becker," her voice got a little louder. "Is he okay?"

"Easy lass," she heard someone speaking to her. "Taylor, it's okay, you're going to be all right."

She opened her eyes again and saw Danny's blurry features. She winced at the brightness and the pain and closed her eyes again. "Danny?"

"Someone dim those lights," she heard her friend say. "They're hurting her."

The brightness behind her closed lids went away and this time when she opened her eyes, she was able to keep them open. Everything was shadowy as she let her eyes adjust and then she turned her head to the side. "Danny? Is Becker okay?"

"He's fine, Taylor," Danny assured her, squeezing her hand gently. "He wasn't even scratched. You, on the other hand, gave us all quite a scare. Don't you ever do something so stupid again. That's an order."

"Where..."

"You're in the hospital, Taylor. They had to do surgery to repair the damage from Helen's knife."

"Professor Cutter? Stephen?"

"Still here and still very much alive. They're also not too happy that you almost got yourself killed. They're going to have plenty to say to you when you're recovered."

"Helen?" Why did her throat hurt so much?

"She's gone, sweetheart."

Taylor recognized that voice and when she tried to sit up, she felt gentle hands pushing her back down on the bed. Before she could protest too much, Danny's face was replaced with Becker's.

"You look awful," she said hoarsely. He didn't really. In fact she was pretty sure that he was the best sight she had ever seen. "Haven't you slept at all lately?"

Becker's smile was tired. "Sweetheart, I was a little more concerned with making sure that these doctors were taking good care of my girl. Sleeping wasn't exactly high on my list of concerns."

She tried to reach her hand up to touch his face and was confused by all of the tubes and wires. "Becker? What happened to me?"

She heard the scrape of a chair and then he was sitting in it next to her bed, squeezing her hand between his two. "What happened is that I almost lost you, girl," Becker said quietly, his eyes fastened on hers. "What made you decide to do something so foolhardy as going after Helen by yourself? I would have gone with you."

Taylor nodded, wincing slightly as the movement hurt. "I know you would have and that's why I couldn't tell you." She looked into his eyes. "I realized a long time ago that I had fallen in love with you -- even though I thought you were just pretending." She squeezed his hand, letting him know that she knew that he wasn't pretending. "I had to do this on my own because I was afraid she would come after you."

Becker shook his head. "I was never big enough on her radar to be a target, Taylor. You and Cutter and Stephen were her targets. You were the biggest threat to her."

"But you were always with me, always protecting me," she said softly. "The day my car exploded and your man was killed, all I could think was that it could have so easily been you. I decided that I couldn't take that chance. Next time she came after me, you could be hurt and I needed to make sure that you guys were safe from her no matter what happened to me."

Becker sighed and rested his head on their joined hands. "Taylor, when I realized that you were gone and that you had probably went after Helen by yourself, I was scared. I was so scared."

"But you never get scared."

"That's not exactly true, love," he said, lifting his head so he could look into her eyes again. "I was scared when I realized that there was a chance I could lose you. All I could think about was that you could be hurt and I had never told you how I felt about you. When Cutter and Sarah finally deciphered the coordinates and figured out where you had gone, I didn't think that anyone was moving fast enough to get to you. I was ready to leave them behind."

Taylor's eyes widened. "They all came with you?"

"Cutter, Stephen and Danny came with me," he said quietly. "You had to be saved and she had to be stopped."

"Is she..."

Taylor's question was interrupted by the nurse that came in to put a syringe of something into her IV. Becker was sure that it was pain medicine as Danny had gone to talk to the doctors to tell them that Taylor was in pain. He waited until they were alone again before he looked back at Taylor.

"She's dead," he said firmly. "I warned her that I would shoot her if she tried to hurt you again. She didn't listen and she gave me no choice. It was her or you and I chose you." Becker decided that he wasn't going to tell her right now that the four of them had decided before they arrived that Helen was too dangerous to live. "She had already stabbed you once by the time we got there, and she was leaning over you with a knife. I was angry and I was worried that we were too late. I told her to back away from you and she didn't. When she tried to stab you again, I fired."

"Safe," she said softly. "All of you are finally safe."

"_You're_ safe," Becker corrected her. "You were and always have been the one I was the most worried about."

"I love you," she murmured.

"I know you do, sweetheart, and I love you."

"I feel so weak. I'm so tired."

"You've been through a lot, love. Your body needs rest so that you can heal."

"I don't want --"

"Sssh," he said softly, leaning up to kiss her forehead. "You need rest, Taylor. Don't fight the medicine the nurse gave you. I promise, I'll be right here when you wake up."

When Taylor was sleeping soundly, Becker leaned back in his chair. He never let go of her hand as he watched her face. He hadn't lied to her when he told her how scared he had been when she was missing. In fact, he doubted he was going to relax completely until she was healed and back at home where she belonged.

Taylor Craig had spent the last two years taking care of everyone around her and causing miracles to happen. Becker was planning on several years of taking care of her, now. As far as plans went, it wasn't a bad one and he was positive that it would be a good change for her. It was a future that he was looking forward to.


End file.
